U.S. take commanding lead into Curtis Cup singles

The United States flexed their muscles and made the most of their home field advantage on day two of the 40th Curtis Cup match and now need only 1½ points from today’s singles matches to claim the overall match. 

The overnight score sits at 9-3 to the USA over a courageous GB&I team at Quaker Ridge after the hosts won the morning fourballs 3-0, then took two more points in the afternoon foursomes and it was only Ireland’s Olivia Mehaffey and her partner Sophie Lamb who prevented a whitewash as they won their foursomes match.

After securing the afternoon win Mehaffey was in confident mood and commented, “We played really well this afternoon. We played two amazing players so feels pretty good to get the win right now. Obviously, it’s a little disappointing how the team has done but everyone will be pumped up tomorrow. We’ve got nothing to lose, we’ve got to go out all guns blazing and hopefully we can get a couple points on the board.”

Elaine Farquharson-Black, Captain, Great Britain and Ireland was of course disappointed,  “We definitely played better in the morning than we played in the afternoon. Olivia and Sophie played great golf but in the second match we were doing all right before losing five holes on the spin and then it got really ragged. You can’t get any momentum and they were always fighting it.” 

“I was disappointed because we didn’t play to our own high standards and we didn’t really put any pressure on the Americans in the second two matches.”

“We can still do it. Every single one of them can beat every single one of the Americans. We’ve got to believe that and we’ve got to go out fighting.”

There is nothing to lose now fr GB&I and they need to go on the offensive from the off in the singles matches if they are to have any chance of retaining the trophy.

Results:

Morning Fourballs 

Olivia Mehaffey / Sophie Lamb (GB&I) vs. Jennifer Kupcho / Kristen Gillman (USA) – United States win 3&2.

Alice Hewson / Annabell Fuller (GB&I) vs. Lilia Vu / Mariel Galdiano (USA) – United States win 2&1.

Lily May Humphreys / Shannon McWilliam (GB&I) vs. Lucy Li / Andrea Lee (USA) – United States win 3&2.

Afternoon Foursomes

Olivia Mehaffey / Sophie Lamb (GB&I) vs. Jennifer Kupcho / Lilia Vu (USA) – GB&I win 2&1.

Annabell Fuller / India Clyburn (GB&I) vs. Lauren Stephenson / Kristen Gillman – United States win 6&5.

Paula Grant / Shannon McWilliam (GB&I) vs. Lucy Li / Sophia Schubert – United States win 7&5.